


Cloud-gazing Thursdays and bad tag-team names

by arthur_177



Category: Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Backstory, M/M, avengers kinkmeme, epic Hulk/Clint friendship, get-together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-15
Updated: 2012-10-15
Packaged: 2017-11-16 09:04:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arthur_177/pseuds/arthur_177
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not that Clint doesn't like Bruce. It's just that he likes the Hulk better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cloud-gazing Thursdays and bad tag-team names

**Author's Note:**

> For an avengers kinkmeme prompt which basically amounted to 'epic Clint/Hulk bromance'. http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/9218.html?thread=19247362#t19247362 It turned into something with a bit more Clint introspection than planned, and suddenly there was Tony/Bruce and Clint/Coulson, which was also not in the original plan. 
> 
> I'm mixing up universes a little here - there is some cinematic universe, some AEMH, some comic material that's referred to. I'm an expert in none of those, so apologies for inconsistencies etc.

“It's not that I don't like you”, he says one night, after there has been too much of superscientist-made alcohol and he is still too raw from the last mission to watch his mouth. He regrets it the moment he says it, because ouch, of the top ten worst things you could say. But Bruce just laughs quietly and says “I'm going to take that as 'you're a good guy, Banner, and I'm about as bad at expressing my feelings as you are, so we'll leave it at that', case in point for the latter statement, and say that you're a good guy too, Clint.” Clint smiles sheepishly and nods. “You're a good guy, Bruce.” He means it. He really does. But.

 

“It's not that I don't like him”, Clint says, trying to reach for the popcorn that is currently being deliberately moved out of his reach. “It's just – hey, I brought that popcorn, so I deserve to get some of it – it's just that he's so intimidating.”

Next to him, Hulk nods sagely. Clint isn't in a mindset for irony, so the misplaced intimidation is lost on him [Hulk has explained to Clint that 'iron-y' is what Tony is and that he thinks titanium alloy is a rude word. Clint had pondered about that for a day and then decided that Hulk had the world's best pokerface and had been taking the piss for about a month with statements like that. He'd told him so, and Hulk had said that he can't go around intimidating people with his intellect [Literally. 'Hulk can't go around intimidating people with Hulk's intellect.' Not 'smash', 'intellect']. He'd also caught Clint when he nearly fell off the roof laughing.]

It's just that Clint likes the Hulk better than Bruce.

 

_His first handler at SHIELD had written him up for insubordination five times. He knew what four of the issues were, and he'd be the first one to admit that yes, he did that, and yes, the bastard deserved it, and it was a reasonable call to make in the situation. The last one he didn't know about, but what he knew was that five insubordination charges meant trouble._

_Trouble unsurprisingly looked like a nice middle-aged businessman in an innocent-looking non-SHIELD suit. “I take it you're Agent Coulson then, sir?” “I believe so, given that it's what it says on the door. And I take it you're Agent Barton, given that that is what it says on these five insubordination reports in front of me.”_

_As far as the inquisition went, Coulson wasn't half as bad as people had led him to believe. He asked questions to the point, made notes, asked for clarifications, and all in all Clint had had worse briefings. Coulson even very obviously tried not to smile as Clint summarized why he'd made the call he made during the Venice mission, and what his feelings were towards his handler in clear and rather elaborate terms._

_Four charges later, after each of which Coulson conceded that he officially was rebuked for this but may inofficially have had a point but should stop doing this, there were proper channels and ways to do this which did not fill Coulson's time with insubordination reports, Coulson placed the fifth paper next to a file that said Barton, Clinton Francis among too many 'classified' stamps to look intimidating anymore. Then he asked one of those questions Clint hated, the ones which sounded like everyone had known that since high school and which weren't meant to remind Clint that he had no right to be playing in the pool with the bright kids, but inevitably did. The type of questions his handler tended to ask him now and then. He might have had an idea what the last insubordination report was about, then, and wondered if Coulson was going to write him a sixth one for this._

_Clint considered a number of rude things to reply, but decided that Coulson had so far seemed like a decent guy, so he said “The answer is probably no, sir. I thought it'd be in my file that I never received formal education and was considered too stupid for a lot of things, although if it's not that'd explain why SHIELD, which seems to run on a combination of genius scientists and Director Fury's willpower, took someone like me on”. Coulson sighed and made a note in the margins of the last report. “First, Agent Barton, you're here because you have been considered an asset, and your track record, including insubordinations, confirm this assessment. Then, the next thing I am going to say is confidential. Finally, your handler is an idiot, the last charge will be dropped, and I'll arrange for you to be transferred to a different handler. One who actually botheres to read your file and not assume that answering 'don't know' to seemingly simple questions was the equivalent of a rude gesture rather than implying lack of knowledge of facts irrelevant to your mission. Good day, Agent Barton”_

_The next day, he was assigned to Coulson._

_Clint likes Coulson too, although he is more intimidating than the Hulk in some ways._

 

Clint knows he can take on Iron Man with a carefully selected quiver, and he knows that by contrast, if he was partial to sports metaphors, Tony would be world champion and Clint probably wouldn't even have heard of whatever Tony was competing in. He's on the team because he is damn good, but he's not on the team because he is a genius.

Tony and Bruce are on the team because, well, resident superscientists, and the suit and the non-suit contribution doesn't hurt. Steve is Captain fucking America, so there's that. Tasha is.. well, Tasha, and that is a whole superpower to itself. Steve has what they call leadership skills, Tasha can talk people into doing anything she can't threaten-at-gunpoint them into doing. And he? He's the guy who brought a bow to a gunfight, but he's damn good at what he does.

 

Hulk's also on the team because he's damn good at what he does. And Hulk's on the team because against all odds, Hulk's a decent guy. Hulk's seen the insides of prisons, one type or the other, and he's had people screw him over and over again, and hunt him down when all he wanted to do was be a hero just this once.

Clint can relate to that. Can he ever.

So when they bring what Banner calls 'the other guy' in and they're suddenly a team, and they're a team despite the fact that Hulk broke Harlem last time he was in New York and Clint.. Clint would rather not have to make a fucking list of all the things he broke just in the past 48 hours, he doesn't take to Steve for his leadership skills or Tony for his genius.

Tasha keys him in on the anecdotes – how Tony said he was a fan of the way Bruce turned into a big green rage monster. He wonders if anyone ever told Hulk that he was a fan of the way Hulk turned into a big green hero.

 

Bruce stays on the team because of reasons of his own, which may or may not have to do predominantly with science, or with Tony, or probably with both.

Clint stays on the team because Coulson says he stays on the team, and while he'd have told Fury where to stick it after the week he's had, it's Coulson. The man's been his handler for years and nearly died (because of him, but Clint's not going there today. He needs to be semi-functional, and a guilt trip won't do for that), he deserves to be cut some slack, even from Agent Clint 'Inofficial codename: pain-in-the-ass' Barton.

He doesn't quite know how exactly it works, what with Bruce being Bruce and Hulk being Hulk and both sort of being the other at the same time, but Hulk stays on the team too.

It takes him a while to believe Bruce when he admits that Hulk stays because Hawkeye's on the team.

 

He doesn't realize how much he'd grown fond of Hulk, how much of a distance he'd keept from anyone but Tasha, until he realizes that the odd looks Bruce gives him sometimes are signs of his confusion that, of all people he could have take to, it was the other guy.

 

He stops thanking Bruce for catching him. Instead, he ignores how tiny his hand looks against the Hulk's arm and says 'hey, thanks for having my back out there, big guy'.

Hulk smiles at him. It's a terrifying grin, full of the promise of all the rage that forms the very essence of the Hulk, but all Clint can see is a friend he knows to always have his back smiling at him.

 

When Bruce does science or psychology or whatever and comes to an arrangement where the Hulk gets to play now that things seem less likely to get broken in the process (Tony had Hulk-proofed the Tower, but Clint wonders if recent events hadn't simply Avengers-proofed the Hulk), Clint decides that there's no time like the present, especially not the present after a Doombot nearly killed you for the third time this week, and asks the Hulk if he wants to go watch a movie without having to listen to Tony explain why the science is flawed.

 

It turns into regular movie nights, and throwing popcorn at each other, and teaming up when it gets a little too close for comfort to be reminded that they're only on the team because they're damn good, not because they're damn good and resident superscientists or Captain America on top of that.

It turns into making up stories of a world in which Green Rage Monsters are appreciated for their honest, if sometimes smashing, heroism by all and get to go on dates like normal, less big and less green people, and uneducated archers get to correct Tony Stark on science (and get dates, maybe) while sitting on the roof eating cake on Thursdays.

It turns into Clint ordering a large take-away portion of Shawarma after their new post-mission ritual which the Hulk later eats while Clint drinks beer and they have their own private debrief and 'we saved the world again, how about that' party.

 

The others don't quite get it, this 'Legolas and Shrek BFF club' (or one of the myriad of other names Tony comes up with. Clint thinks Tony might actually get it, because Tony is alive because one of his robots pushed his arc reactor within reach and Jarvis is a lot more than a functional version of Windows. Tony's not exactly new to unusual friendships, but then Tony's Tony, the mocking is part of the package deal). Tasha has taken to Bruce, but she treats the Hulk as a shadow looming in the corner, as a threat she has to watch out for. Steve likes Bruce well enough, but from what Clint knows based on Coulson's less classified and more fanboy-ish knowledge, he might see a little too much of what he could have become in the Hulk, flashes of old foes and times where everything was about being bigger and better at smashing, no matter what the cost. Tony might as well be married to Bruce, what with having picked the equipment for their lab together and with the finishing each other's sentences and passing each other research idea notes stuff. He might get it, but at the end of the day, he simply likes Bruce better.

It's not that he doesn't like Bruce. It's just that.. well. Hulk doesn't go around intimidating people with his intellect, and that makes him Clint's sort of guy.

Plus, while Tony gets all the good one-liners, Hulk can definitively hold his own when it comes to humour. The guy's funny in an innocent type of way, and after everything with Loki, that's sometimes what Clint needs, just as he needs someone to catch him when he's falling out of a building and the thing with the grappling hook arrow doesn't work for some reason (he fell out of a building without the Hulk to catch him a couple of months back. That didn't work out so well for him. He prefers a couple of Hulk-induced bruises and the odd comment whether Tony should be jealous because Clint's being all cupidy with his favourite scientist's alter ego to months-long hospital stays.). Hulk's a friend, and he hasn't had that in quite a while. Granted, he's a lot bigger and a lot greener than most people's best friend, but he's spent his life with badly dressed bearded ladies you could rely on no matter what, and handsome men in nice outfits who took your soul and stuffed something else in. Looks are worth nothing. Having a friend though, someone he can trust without reservation and who even shares his taste in movies.. After a lifetime of convincing himself that he needs noone, he surprises himself with how much he likes it.

 

They are friends, which means they watch out for each other, eat popcorn and cheer together while Steve and Tony spar, and know the other at both their best and worst.

It also means that sometimes, they fight.

They are watching a movie, one made in Hollywood where eventually everything turns into a romantic subplot and even the Jekyll/Hyde character and the bitter lone gunman end up with their happily ever after. Normally, Hulk tends to focus on a particular trope in the movie which they then proceed to mock (or sometimes, discuss a little more seriously than anyone would give either of them credit for, because smashing and shooting is fun, most of the times, except sometimes it's... not). This time, Hulk is just quiet, and when Clint prods, he admits that he is sad because he never gets a romantic subplot.

And somehow, whatever he says to that results in the Hulk turning the tables on him, because it's obvious to Hulk that Clint has a chance at a romantic subplot and it's just so damn annoying that he doesn't do anything about it, and 'Hulk annoyed' is something Clint doesn't like to hear at all, because that way lies disaster.

He also doesn't like to hear at all about that.. thing he may or may not have for Coulson and which Hulk narrows down on, as if it was that easy, as if he had any idea what it was like.

Clint then says a stupid thing like 'You're one to talk', and then a stupid thing like 'Do you have any idea what happens to people I like, and what happens to me if I trust people too much?', and the Hulk says something like 'You dare telling Hulk that people get hurt when YOU do something?', and it escalates a bit further than that.

 

Clint wakes up in medical with a cast around his arm, and Bruce looks at his hands as he tells him that he'll be fine, it's just a couple of bruises and a broken arm, and that he's sorry.

Clint knows the Hulk better than Bruce, but he knows that he doesn't quite mean it, not entirely. He tells him it's fine, and that in all honesty he deserved it and shouldn't have.. shouldn't have anything.

Bruce nods thoughtfully and says, “Tony's taking me out for dinner tonight”. Clint contemplates why he should know that and says “That's... nice?” Bruce sighs and clarifies “To dinner... dinner, not just work colleague science talk dinner. Which apparently the other guy asked him out to because I was too much of a moron about this to do it myself. The reason I'm telling you this is because I don't know if that means he tried to do something about... your situation as well.”

Oh.

Right.

Clint thanks him and wishes him luck. Once Bruce has left he gathers his things as quickly as possible and contemplates what his next course of action should be, because if the Hulk told Coulson, then...

“You're making a deplorable habit of letting your mouth get you into medical, Barton”, Coulson says from the door. His arms are folded, and he has that expression that means Clint is in trouble, mostly for being Clint, but also for making 'being Clint' Coulson's problem. “I'm working on that, sir. I'll remember never to try to steal the last cookie when watching movies with the Hulk again.”

Coulson gives him another look, the one that indicates that he is vastly unimpressed with his lame excuse. Clint knows Coulson's looks much too well by now. Clint knows why he knows Coulson's looks so well far better than he'd like to.

“Yes, about that. I had a very interesting conversation with the Hulk last night, Barton. It very much amounted to what I can only describe as a shovel talk and an attempt to ask me out on behalf of someone else. I also recall an apology for damaging what the Hulk seems to consider 'my archer', and a clarification that I needn't worry, said archer was still able to go on a date. I would very much like to hear your views on this matter, Agent Barton.”

Clint very much wants to come up with a clever cover-story to get himself out of this situation. Coulson will roll his eyes, Clint will grin winningly, and things will be back to normal.

Except the last time he did something along those lines, he ended up with an armful of angry Hulk. He doesn't like the Hulk when he gets angry – it tends to hurt Hulk, and Clint doesn't like to be the cause of pain for his friends.

So he does the only thing he can think of to prevent Hulk from giving a repeat performance, pleads guilty as charged, and asks Coulson if he'd like to have dinner tonight.

Coulson tells Barton he's an idiot, and that he's lucky to have friends who are better at this sort of thing.

 

The next day is Thursday, and they sit on the roof and eat take-away while making up stories about the things they see in the clouds. Clint brings cake, to apologize. Hulk says he accepts the apology.

When Clint asks, jokingly, if he was going to get an apology for his arm, Hulk asks him what he did last night.

Clint's gotten plenty of broken bones without getting a date in return, so he reckons that's a fair enough deal.

 

Things go back to normal after that, except that now sometimes they talk about other things. Clint drunkenly admits that he still thinks Coulson is way out of his league and that he has no idea why he agreed to this; Hulk sleepily mumbles that he's happy for Bruce, but that Tony doesn't like Hulk the way he likes Bruce.

Clint ends up with an exasperated Phil and a long 'Barton, I have no idea what you get into that head of yours sometimes, but let me set this straight once and for all' talk. Tony and Bruce end up with a persistent archer in their lab and a long conversation made less awkward for all involved by the copious amount of beer Clint brought. What Hulk ends up with after that talk Clint would rather not know the details about, but he seems a lot happier.

 

The next time Clint tries to buy Shawarma for the Hulk after a mission, Tony stops him and tells him he already got that covered.

Clint smiles and buys some for Coulson instead.

 

They create universes they see in the clouds on Thursdays, and they remain the once and future champions of the Avengers Fantasy Football League, much to Steve's dismay. Hulk catches Clint when he falls off buildings (and trees, and park benches, but that was only that one time), and Clint always has an arrow left to watch the Hulk's back (and always leaves the last cookie for him, even defending it against Tony [and Thor, but he's not doing that again; there are limits to what he'd do for the Hulk]. Hulk likes cookies; Tony's filthy rich, he can buy himself a new pack if he has a problem with that arrangement).

When Hill shouts at Tony for something his other other half did while teaming up with Coulson's boyfriend before turning her wrath to Clint, Tony asks her whether she honestly expected the Cupid-Green Giant team to do anything else.

 

Clint thinks about that. He's never really been good with teams, but somehow, now he's ended up with four of them – there's him and Tasha, there's him and Coulson, there's him as part of the Avengers; and there's him and Hulk. It's still new, and he's still not sure how it happened or why suddenly there are all those people in his life whom he can trust without reservation (even if they break his arm sometimes. In a friendly manner.). But he's pretty sure he could get used to that.

 

They need to work on their tag-team name though. Team Cupid-Green Giant is only marginally better than 'the Legolas and Shrek BFF club'.

 


End file.
